Quake-Hit India Says Safety Is Key in Rebuilding Effort

The Indian government Wednesday told survivors of the huge earthquake in the Kutch region that it would rebuild their devastated towns and villages and try to make them quake-proof.

The government will construct only one- and two-story buildings in the quake-prone area, not tower blocks like the ones that collapsed into heaps of rubble, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj said.

“We want to rebuild a new and modern Kutch in a systematic manner which will have earthquake-resistant buildings,” she told a news conference after a meeting in New Delhi of ministers overseeing relief efforts.

The arid region near the Pakistani border was the worst hit in the quake that struck the western state of Gujarat on Jan. 26, killing as many as 30,000 people.

Officials have blamed flouting of building regulations and a drive to build as cheaply as possible for the collapse of many of the buildings.

Many shops opened in Bhuj, a city of 150,000, for the first time in nearly two weeks as Hindus prayed for the dead in a traditional end-of-mourning ceremony.

Groups of grieving men and women gathered under the eyes of holy men at a public ground in Bhuj to chant Vedic hymns as the sun rose over a scene of devastation and rubble.

“This is a very significant ceremony. After 12 days, the soul severs all its ties with the material world,” Hindu seer Sadhu Paramtattva Das said.